[Python-Dev] RELEASED Python 3.0 final

[Guido van Rossum]

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 9:28 PM,  <glyph at divmod.com> wrote:
> On 5 Dec, 06:10 pm, guido at python.org wrote:
>> On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 11:27 PM,  <glyph at divmod.com> wrote:
>>> With all due respect, for me, "library support" and "serious use" are
>>> synonymous.
>>
>> Glyph, I cannot have a discussion with you if every single post of
>> yours is longer than my combined daily output. Please spend some time
>> writing shorter posts. I'm sure I'm not the only one here with a short
>> attention span. :-)
>
> I already spend a lot of time trying to remove extraneous details.  The
> drafts of these messages are usually 3x as long :).  So, trying to keep it
> short:

Thanks!

> Thomas paraphrased my point pretty well.  The importance of libraries cannot
> be overemphasized.  Maybe you're right and the stdlib is enough for a large
> audience, but I don't know that audience.  Everyone I know who uses Python,
> uses it because of a library.  In some cases, an equivalent library exists
> for another language, and Python wins because it has a nicer syntax.  But,
> in no case does Python win where it *doesn't* have the library.

Clearly you're not reading the edu-sig list. :-)

> I think that the marketing for py3 needs to target library vendors before
> targeting novices.  If the novices are targeted first, they are going to
> have a bad experience when "python" libraries don't work with py3, and
> library maintainers are going to have a bad experience when clueless newbies
> harass them to update their software without understanding the magnitude of
> the work to do so.

I think it's great to have specific marketing targeted towards library
developers. I know we haven't done enough -- for example I promised a
C extension porting guide which didn't materialize. :-(

But I do *not* think it is a good idea to emphasize elsewhere that
most people shouldn't use Python 3.0. Py3k will have a hard enough
time gaining mindshare without the very developers who created it
discouraging its use. If you can't find it in your heart to recommend
3.0, can you at least keep that within your circle of
library-producing friends?

Whenever someone asks me which version to use, I alwasys respond with
a question -- what do you want to use it for? And then I'll give them
an answer based on what's available for their needs. Sometimes I have
to recommend Python 2.2. It's been a while since I had to recommend
1.5.2 but a few years ago that was still common. (A large company I
know still has servers where 1.5.2 is the default, although 2.4 is
also installed.)

> I've been predicting this for years, but two days into Python 3's release,
> I've already seen real-world examples of this pattern in #twisted.  I can
> tell these people to "downgrade" to py2 when they come ask me for help, but
> I don't think most of them ask for help.  They just get angry and learn Java
> instead.

If they're that easily convinced that Java is better they probably
were a lost cause anyway, so I won't mourn their departure too much.

The one thing I would warn against is replacing a default Python 2.x
with Python 3.0 -- if you find 2.x pre-installed, it's likely that
other parts of the OS infrastructure depend on it, and *any* upgrade
except to 2.x.n is likely to cause trouble.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)